Big housing spend falls short of Twyford’s goal

6400 state homes will be built over the next four years, equating to 1600 builds a year. Housing Minister Phil Twyford trumpeted the numbers, saying they exceeded the Government’s earlier commitment to build at least 1000 state houses each year.

But the number is lower than Twyford’s hoped-for 2000 homes a year.

The houses will be funded largely through Housing New Zealand borrowing up to $2.9 billion from third parties and investing $900 million from its own operations, as well as an additional $234.4 million in operational funding from Budget 2018.

Twyford said that the register of households waiting for a public house now stood at 7890 plus an additional 1805 waiting for a transfer to a more suitable public house.

The Government also announced a large insulation programme aimed at improving “tens of thousands” of owner-occupier households.

The program will be delivered by grants from the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority with $142.5 million in new operating funding allocated over the next four years.